7 Tips for Clients Who Want to Ride the Bull Market: Advisors' Advice

1. Rebalance regularly.

With my clients, we’ve been consistently rebalancing their portfolios. The result is a natural shift of assets from "things they’ve lost the least" to "things they’ve lost the most." With the recent upswing of the market, this naturally means their equities have increased more in value also. We do not time the market, which is outside our control. We control what we can, and that includes being disciplined in periodic portfolio rebalancing.

There are some clients whose portfolios we’ve shifted away from bonds and into other fixed income assets during the market downturn. Again, we’ve rebalanced their portfolios, meaning we have shifted more of their funds into equities because that’s what has lost the most value during this time.

Some clients have asked for specific equities, and we have incorporated some of their ideas, but only if they fit their overall financial planning strategy. Unless a major life event takes place, we do not deviate from the client’s overall planning strategy.

— George Kao, financial planner, Reach One Teach One Financial